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Are You Over-Confident? Take This

Test...
Don Peppers Follow
CX Expert, Keynote Speaker, Best… 398 175 0

All people are prone to over-confidence, that’s just a part of human nature. You’ve probably seen
similar figures, but just to illustrate the point, in one College Board survey of 829,000 high-school
seniors, less than 1% rated themselves below average in “ability to get along with others,” while a
full 25% thought they would be in the top percentile! And the professors these seniors were going
to encounter at university are no better at self-evaluation, either. 94% of professors surveyed rated
themselves "above average" at their jobs!
People aren't over-confident because they’re stupid; they're overconfident because they’re people.
In psychology, it's known as the “self serving bias,” referring to every person’s tendency to assume
that our successes are due to our own sterling qualities, while our failures are due to others, or to
factors outside our control. Either way, it allows us to maintain a self-image far more positive than
warranted by the facts.
The problem is that most of us don’t recognize this in ourselves (even though we easily recognize it
in others). And it has serious consequences when it comes to making good business decisions. 80%
of business executives polled in one survey, for instance, thought their company provided "superior"
service, while only 8% of the customers of those companies rated the service as "superior."
Recently I came across an interesting test that will demonstrate your own level of over-confidence. If
you doubt the fact that you, too, are as over-confident as all these other people, then take this test.
For each of the following ten questions, pick a range of answers, such that you are 90% confident
that the right answer to the question lies somewhere between the low you pick and the high.
Be sure to WRITE YOUR ANSWERS DOWN so there can be no memory lapse later, and remember:
You want 90% of the answers to be within whatever ranges you specify:
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The answers to these ten questions are in small type at the bottom of this post.
How'd you do? (Remember: We did NOT ask you for the exact answers to these trivia questions,
only for the RANGE within which you felt 90% confident, and you were absolutely free to pick
whatever extreme range you liked!)
A version of this test originally appeared in the 1990 book Decision Traps: Ten Barriers to Brilliant
Decision-Making and How to Overcome Them, by J. Edward Russo and Paul J. H. Shoemaker, and was
reprinted in Ian Ayres' 2007 book SuperCrunchers.
According to Ayres, out of a thousand people that Russo and Shoemaker tested, the average person
got four to seven questions wrong, and fewer than 1% got 9 or 10 answers right, which would be
required for 90% confidence.
Translation: More than 99% of people are over-confident!
The psychological truth is that it's almost impossible not to be over-confident in your own abilities,
and over-proud of your own achievements. For all the problems it might cause in making better
management decisions, the self serving bias plays an important role in keeping us all mentally
capable of tackling the next challenge and achieving the next goal.
In fact, the only group of people known to exhibit highly accurate self-assessments, with realistic
memories of their achievements, are the clinically depressed! They're more likely to do well on this
test, also. So don't be depressed that you didn't get 9 or 10 right. Just remain aware of this natural
human bias the next time you're trying to see your company through your customers' eyes, as
opposed to your own!

Don Peppers
CX Expert, Keynote Speaker, Best… Follow

175 comments

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Karen Wootton
12 m
I have the best job!
 going for the "90% confident" led me to provide very broad ranges for things for which I
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had no idea (length of the Nile river? Between 1 and 10,000 miles) and more narrower
ranges when I had a hunch (age of MLK, Jr when killed? Between 35 and 45.) So what does
that really have to do with my overall level of confidence and my confidence with this piece
of trivia? Does on imply the other?
Gostei Responder

Enda McGuinness
2a
Project Manager, NPI Manager, Polymer Engineer, Medical Device Manufacturing

6/10
Gostei Responder

Helene Mattisson
6a
Founder/Creative Director, Event & Entertainment, Communication

In my experience, those who are overconfident often market themselves much better than
someone more humble and thus get better positions. Overconfidence becomes a problem
when it is mistaken as strong leadership skills as those people are often seen as driven by
recruiters. Consequently, too often, you find people in managerial positions who do not
have the shoulders and/or the spine of their acquired responsibilities. If they are smart,
they have trustworthy co-workers of lower levels around and they are excellent at
delegating tasks/projects where they are weak to them, which is ok (sometimes still taking
the credit for it, which is not ok). If they are not smart you get a manager/director/head of
XYZ full of crap, slowing down or even damaging the company and its image. I have seen
many of those go through their working life without ever being questioned on their actual
abilities as they managed to reach a certain level where they cannot get down from.
Gostei Responder

Sadan Manthra
6a
Sadan Engineering Repairs Coordinator at Emirates
Manthra
i just got 6 correct.
Gostei Responder 1 gostou 1 resposta

Ivonne Teoh
6a
Ivonne Blockchain will explode in 2021. Are you ready for this? Ask me how!
Teoh
Sadan! That's great. I didn't know any answers... So I'm gonna beat my head on
the wall now! It's not important to know all things, you can always google them!
lol I heard that why Henry Ford hired people smarter than him!
Gostei Responder

John John Drew 6a

CEO / Designer / Illustrator at JHD Designs LLC
Drew

I guess, I over analyze everything - so I basically talked myself out of taking the test - if
that's what you want to call it. It seemed interesting, while at the same time, rather
bothersome. I probably missed something mind-altering and absolutely brilliant but I
doubt it. What I've ascertained from the slew of comments is that this is some kind of
psych-trivia exam - dressed up to be a character assessment quiz (nonsense). This is a type
of test to get some bizarre reaction from the reader -not really measurable for any purpose
other than a real bad attempt to get people to read their profile . Then again, the whole
thing is rather horrible - horrible in the sense that it's really harebrained. This "test" or
whatever you call it has no point - sort of like "Seinfeld" . While one may dissent - the other
one engages it wholeheartedly. I say, "why"? I'm really tired of people posting this silly
random psychosomatic existentialist pseudo-scientific non-sense to make themselves seem
 insightful. For one, there's a difference between being "arrogant" and being "humble".
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Over-confidence (arrogance/overtly proud) is a negative trait - it is the absolute opposite
of "humility". I wish people quit trying to justify negative character traits to brandish really
stupid comments, ideas, and attitudes there's no way to justify being an awful human
being. It doesn't matter what you do or what you know - a jerk is still a jerk. You don't need
a test to figure it out - just read some of these pathetic comments. I have no idea what's
wrong with the human race - from the average number of comments - I'd say that the
average person on here needs to live in the street for a couple of months (homeless). I've
worked many "moons" now in corporate America and I'll never get used to the disgusting
attitudes of various self-important people.
Gostei Responder

Angie Brooks
6a
Angie Operational Efficiency
Brooks
I think this is neat, and common sense. For the questions that I had no idea how to answer,
I gave myself an insanely wide margin of error and for those that I felt (over?)-confident
about, a much smaller range. I can't say this relates to over-confidence other than in the
broadest of terms, but it's a fun exercise in self-analysis nonetheless.
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